


a new challenge

by EmberEnchantress



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drinking, F/M, Flirting, Implied Rebecca/Havoc, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parental Maes Hughes, Pining, Romance, Royai - Freeform, Roy’s Bad Flirting, Slow Burn, Smoking, Undercover Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 15:11:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18390917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmberEnchantress/pseuds/EmberEnchantress
Summary: Roy Mustang and Maes Hughes along with a few friends take it upon themselves to secretly work on the untouched cases of the city of Amestris- Unfortunately Roy gets a little sidetracked by a pretty lady.





	a new challenge

**Author's Note:**

> Hey I haven’t written in a while but got an idea for a story and wanted to use my motivation while I had it. This chapter will probably go through some editing in the future but I’m hoping to have multiple chapters and will tag things as they happen! Please enjoy and don’t yell at me :,)

When Friday rolls along, it can mark a sigh of relief for most people, be it laboring men getting the chance to drop their tools and wash the grime from their calloused palms, or the slaves of business being allowed to finally stretch their aching backs and avert their stinging eyes from the tormenting glow of desktops. 

No matter the job or hardships possessed by the people of the world, it’s considered almost a pause button on fast moving lives.

By now the moon had claimed the bustling city of Amestris, it’s luminous milky glow painting over the highways of honking cars where the streetlights couldn’t quite reach, illuminating the lively sidewalk beside it where couples with sleeping children at home walk alongside the greater majority of tired bodies that were waiting to collapse on the couch with a drink in hand.

Roy scratches at soil beneath his broken nails, letting it fall to his feet while he moves with the nightly crowd. Already the mounds of his biceps begin to ache as they’re squeezed by his dirt covered forearms. A smoky sigh flowed around the cigarette that lay snug between his cracked lips, breathing in once more to be met with the taste of metallic blood as it joined the flavor of ash already resting on his tongue. 

Pressing a grease stained pointer to his mouth, a tear in his lip stings beneath the pad of his finger. His suspicion was confirmed when a faint smudge of crimson glowed in the butterscotch lamplight as he pulled the digit from the wound.

“Say, happen to have some chapstick?”, the cancer stick burning in Roy’s mouth creases under the pressure of his ill spirited smile, hopeful grey eyes focusing on Hughes.

Hughes scratched the back of his neck, face lit red then artificial green by a flickering traffic light. All he could give back was an apologetic yet moisturized smile that only made Roy’s lips feel drier. “Sorry Mustang, can’t say I do.”

The shoulders clashing against Roy’s chest remind him to watch where he’s walking, both his and Maes’ worn out work boots stop in front of the zipping crosswalk as an orange pixelated hand seized them with its glare. Irked, Roy raised a brow. “What about the one you had earlier?”, a thick drop of crimson rides down his unshaven chin and he smears it with the back of his palm.

“Actually...”, they follow the flow to the next block, Maes scrounges through his messenger bag with a focused eye, nearly running into a poster covered phone booth as he did. “Wait one sec.”

Roy closed his stinging eyes in a sigh as they reluctantly pulled over by a bench. He takesthe time to kill the ember on his cigarette with the bottom of his shoe before dropping it onto the the graveyard of other cigarettes that’ve been stomped into greased stained pavement. 

Over the loud chatter of crowds, he listened to the zip of cars flying by. 

The gust they all left behind blew nice and cold through his hot sweaty hair, carrying the smell of gasoline as it hit his face and reminded him of home. The countless hours he spent as a boy rolling marbles across the roadside outside Madame Christmas’s brothel resurfaced in his memory.

A rather different childhood indeed, yet he still smiles at it. 

“Ask and you shall receive Mustang.”, something is pressed into his palm and it brings him back to this smog filled reality. “Thanks-“, his eyes met up to a small cylinder is his palm, goopy yellow paste moved inside it, shimmering in the moonlight. His fist clenched. “Not this.”

His friend lifts his shoulders innocently, loudly zipping his bag back up without remorse. “It’s Elicia’s favorite. Finish up that thank you.”

Roy sears a nasty look into his eyes, leaning against an abandoned newspaper box as he screws the star shaped cap off the children’s lip gloss, tasting sickeningly sweet banana as the wand spreads it across his desert dry lips. “Fuck you.”

As dirty of a move as it was, he had to admit that the sting was slightly muted. At least the gloss was clear.

“Hey...”, Maes cuts off the mood prematurely, reading a soggy newspaper that had been sitting idly on the graffitied bench, “Take a glance at this.”

Wind invades his thick jacket as he took the sopping paper out of his companion’s hand, his fingers beginning to feel numb in the cold as the water transfers and chills over his bandaged digits. How the hell did the man even read this? 

The small print of the article had made itself a challenge to decipher with how it’s faded ink began blending the letters together into smudges. Roy has to squint his almond eyes for the words to process, luckily enough they do. And it sends chills up his spine.

‘...gunman downtown... two dead one wounded...’, blots of darkness cover the proceeding sentences, Roy’s eye go wide and shaky, racing across the paragraph for whatever else he can milk out of the paragraph. ‘...survivor describes attacker as short with long, stringy hair and pinched face... tattoo or birthmark suspected to be on thigh’

“This is bullshit! The news didn’t say a damn thing!”, He threw the paper at a trash can covered in filth, it’s wet mush of paper fell apart on impact against the grimy metal and splats on the pavement in globs. “What the hell is wrong wi-“

Maes raised his calloused palm to interject any other argument about to leave Roy’s sparkling mouth, keeping a stern expression that Roy only sees when the man is serious; a sight even rarer. 

“Wish I knew...”, his dirty fingers pinch the bridge of his nose, wedding ring gleaming in a passerby car’s headlights as he took the glasses off his face. “We’ll have to get to work... this only spins the web further.”

The truth gave the best solutions, Roy knows this inevitably as he rubs his pounding temple. At the end of the day he has to remember that nobody is forcing them to do the work, more the reason why the mess is in their hands to clean up; they’re the only ones with the guts to touch it. 

“My money is on this man right here.”, Maes presses his finger to a rather new paper pasted to the old phone booth, Roy lifts his scrunched eyelids and studies the face of the WANTED paper. 

The picture was hardly discernible with how grainy it was, an ultrasound was clearer than this if he was being honest. Yet the few clues they had were right there in the photo, a blob with long tendrils covering what is most likely its shoulders fleeing the frame of a CCTV.

Roy nods tiredly, scratching at the curled corners of the paper until he could carefully peel it of the glass, the bottom corner being stolen by the paste as it tore off, luckily all the information was still there. He pushed it into Hughes‘ chest and began walking past the closing shops. “Keep it safe. It’s the best lead we got.”

“Good thing we’re heading to the bar eh? Best we tell the boys...”, Roy hears him rolling up the paper as he jogged back to his side, shoving the bundle into the front pocket of his workbag where it could hang out with the lipgloss.

If anything it was best they head to the bar so Roy didn’t lose his god damn mind, his brain was about to burst if anymore stress got put onto it. Maybe he could chat up some pretty ladies while they’re there, if he’s lucky enough, a fun night may be in the near future. “I need a drink first.”

Maes pats his shoulder with heartily, the sudden impact causing Roy’s mouth to curl in irritation with a twitching eye. They’ve got to be the most unlikely friends around; yet here they were, two polar opposites meeting every Friday nonetheless. 

“I know what you really need.”

“Don’t say it-“

“A woman.”

He said it.

“We aren’t talking about this again. I’m done searching right now, it’s not worth my time. I’ll find one when the time comes.”, Lots of time and breath had gone into merely saying that; literally and figuratively. His addiction to women was nothing he kept buried, some even considered it part of his personality. It took Roy many years to realize it, but he learned he won’t get what he truly wants by throwing himself at any lady there. It didn’t mean his habits have stopped, but now he’s put a clear line between love and lust.

The girls he’d been with before weren’t even his type; they’re all the same. Giggling at everything he said, joke or not, just to leave him alone in the sheets the next morning without a trace. He was an abandoned oak, even at such a young age, a gaping hole in the center with his weak, twisted branches crooked and fruitless.

Possibly the emptiness came from the lack of merit he faced at the end of the day, every time he’s only ever gotten duped, having gotten a pretty girl that purposely made herself easy; he was the challenge for them. What he needed was to find a girl that was his own challenge, one that knew she was something to be deserved and made sure to put up walls that Roy could climb so he could earn that right and respect. Yes, someone that make him run in circles, panting in the dirt like a tired dog and still thirsting for more. What a woman that would be...

The thought set his heart on fire.

Standing tall ahead of them was the old pub, built up old yet strong with faded bricks all muddy brown and orange like dying autumn leaves; of course most of them were covered by ivy that’d grown like a parasite over its structure, lapping over the stains of washed up graffiti and other mystery substances. All that mattered to him was the lively music he could hear mutely through the walls along with the muffled chatter from people dancing in the honey colored windows. For almost two years now, this bar had become the solace of their Friday nights, it’s helped them strengthen their friendship in the worst of times as well as allowing them to meet new people they now call close friends along the way.

His thoughts soon dissipate as Maes’ mocking laughter made itself apparent in his ears. God knows how long this man must’ve been talking. “One day Mustang... you’ll find your Gracia.”, Roy begins shaking his head to stop the conversation, still, Maes continued. “I’ll be standing right there you know. We’ll be up at the altar and I’ll be telling you I told you so.”

“You’re saying it like I’m marrying you.”, he snorts. “Let’s just focus on what’s important.”, Roy can’t help but hate how his chest begins to ache with desire for the day to actually come. Since when had he cared about marriage?

“Fine I’ll stop.”, His friend lets out some more warm chuckles, mirth lining his tired eyes while he led Roy into the building. “But mark my words Mustang, it’ll happen. Just wait until you find her.”

Little did Roy know, she was right beyond that door. The lady of his dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading the first chapter, sorry if it’s a bit scattered but as I said, I’ll tweak it in the future. More things will be explained and I promise our queen will be in the next chapter ;) I truly hope you guys are enjoying this! Don’t be afraid to comment your thoughts, I’d love some feedback! Anyway that’s all I got for now! ε>
> 
> Update: Somehow it slipped past me that autocorrect kept changing Maes to Mae’s and I’m mortified


End file.
